Added: 3 years ago
From: tfwhaling3
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  • It's ashame that on a video called 'The Promise of Living', playing beautiful music to touching footage of innocent America--citizens enjoying that ideal of the pursuit of happiness (even if only temporarily), that the comments are vitriolic and filled with hatred. Seems a sad juxtaposition to me.

  • We played this video at my father's funeral today.

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  • Hey everyone - take a listen to Copland's Walls of Zion. I don't know which one came first, but if you listen to both you can hear the overlap in two completely different settings. Kinda neat!

  • I literally can't stop crying near the middle of this song, so beautiful :) Thanks Aaron Copland for writing the most emotional song in the world (also my junior year marching band show)

  • This was the ballad of our marching band show. The original is very nice, except for that first apx. 2 minutes. its a bit of a bore.

  • This video went viral on Riga

    

  • Really excellent video background - thank you for sharing!

  • Come mothers, come fathers...<3

  • @tfwhaling3: bless you for creating this indescribably beautiful piece of art. I always listen to this piece on Thanksgiving, and I am very touch by the theme of gratitude and trust in the face of obstacles. We need this lesson very much now: to hope and take refuge in our optimism and agressively defend our spirits, and the spirits of our neighbors against the corrosion of sarcasm, fatalism, cynicism. Peace to all on this day of thanks.

  • There never was a song associated with Thanksgiving. Giving thanks is one theme in this song. Why not make this song that one?

  • Happy Birthday Aaron Copland! Born November 14, 1900~

  • Aaron Copland sounds like humanity. Thanks for the post.

  • Isn't this just a amazing piece? Pure Copland! Genius.

  • We performed this song last year my sophomore year of high school, and Stomp Your Foot (also from The Tenderland) freshman year.

  • According to comments a year ago by the person who uploaded this video, the music was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, but he didn't remember the conductor. It was most likely conducted by Eugene Ormandy. I cannot find this particular version of the song on Napster or iTunes. No one plays the strings so sweetly as this version.

  • aaron copland was proboly the best composer ive ever heard

  • our marching band is using this piece for our show music! its so pretty, im in love<3

    marching band: The Pride of Haltom (2011) - "The Promise of Living"

  • this is my favorite copland piece

  • Excellent, tremendous footage to a beautiful score. I loved every second of it. What it must of been like to capture such happy times. Cheers.

  • listening to this in a library and nearly burst into tears mid climax. holy beautiful batman.

  • this is great music to rest to....

  • what a great fucking piece of music

  • Stunningly beautiful. Perhaps the greatest piece of music ever written.

  • BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!! I'm playing this piece next week and it's arranged for Wind Ensembles and now listening to the original I now have a better sense of the music!

  • So excited for my marching band show this year..(x

  • You did a great job with the old film reels.

  • God bless America and it's wonderful sons and daughters.

  • I have never commented on youtube before, and may never again; however, TFwhaling3, I had to say thank you. I love everything about this video. I really can't say it enough. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Even for individuals who don't understand classical, and don't understand the influence of folk music, history, etc. in the national identity of music, and the composers who write it, you make it clear through image. Thank you much. I'll show this to everyone.

  • A simply MAGNIFICENT Work of Art! The video footage with this composition...to quote our youth is "off the hook"!!! Well done sir!

  • This is a touching video set to amazingly warm much by a modern music master....Aaron Copland.

    We love you Aaron where ever you are .You give so much beauty to the world.

    Thanks for this video. I love it !

    Doug G in LV

  • When I hear a piece of music by Copland, you can hear America in it. Copland knew how to capture the essence of American life in music. No other composer comes close.

  • @MotownConnoisseur30 Adams comes close; but you're right about how wonderfully he captures the essence of the USA.

  • @MotownConnoisseur30 Adams comes close; but you're right about how wonderfully he captures the essence of the USA. 

  • Adams does...

  • I have never listened to classical music. But, this Fall I had to take a course Intro to music and if it was not for that class I most likely would have never listened to this type of music. I mean my favorite movie is Gone With the Wind, but that was as close as I had gotten. Now that I have listened to it I love it after chasing 3 kids around all day and always being on the run. It is great to release the tension!

  • @emilynkoch82 Hugs to you! :)

  • 5:05 gives me goosebumps

  • I love the trombone entrance!! Pirates and cowboys -Paul Jackson

  • Oh, how I loved playing the part at 1:45 ... Tough at first, but beautifulll <3.

    I also like the trumpet entrance around 2:45 ... It reminds me of someone. :3

  • I play first clarinet. I hated this song when we first started it last year. Detested it. But then I listened to this. And FELL IN LOVE. Then my band director decided not to do it. -___- AND I WAS MAD. ... That's my story. Bye.

  • Were playing a this and a few other songs in our marching show this year. Im in love with this piece now.

  • Time and again I return to Copland, Maestro Copland.

  • My daughter was proposed to with this piece as background music!

  • The sad thing is that living is not a promise anymore... Abortions should not happen.

    I want the REAL America back...

  • @AustinDaStarWarsGeek Dude, really?  This music is about the American dream and resiliency please keep your political views out of it.

  • I was proposed to with this piece as background music :).

  • @Hosenfeld24601 Yes you were! I love you :)

  • @Hosenfeld24601 You're off to a great start!

  • Great recording of this piece and that giang swing at 4:02 like 50 people on it looks like it would be so much fun!

  • WOW!!!! what an astonishing piece of music.would'nt mind that being played at my funeral.

  • The juxtaposition of so much historic "home movie footage" with the music of Aaron Copland's "The Promise of Living" from "The Tender Land" sends a cozy Americana message.  While it isn't always cozy in everyday reality, the dream of this coziness of living in America remains for us to pursue in our hearts, minds...and actions toward one another. Thanks for sharing this!!

  • I just wanted to comment on this video. I marched DCI, so I know this song well from Crown.

    This video is possibly the most beautiful accompaniment to this song. Every time I heard The Promise of Living, I think of the American way of life, and the vast landscape that America has.

    I just listened to this while reading a wikipedia article on Copland and it gave me goosebumps. THIS song is what Copland is all about,

  • @HylianHero9 I have watched that show so many times, and i hope to one day march in Crown. The first 45 seconds get me every time

  • For some reason this seems to be a piece of music that I can relate to... It's so beautiful!

  • Why this has less views than a song by Rebecca Black has me stumped.

  • @shannonxdenise because good music isn't main stream :(

  • @cbug565

    Southwestern Pennsylvania. After the season starts and we finish the show, I might have a video of us to put up.

  • Our 2011 marching band show features music by Copland, and we are using this as our ballad. It's such a pretty piece and I can't wait until we play it. I play baritone and the beginning part, played here by violins, is a baritone solo, and it might be the prettiest piece of music I've played thus forth.

  • @RickenbackerBeatles Ever sense i have seen Crown's show i have yearned to play this piece on the field. Where do you march?

  • @cbug565 Johnstown High School. Our opener is "Appalachian Spring," and our closer will be "Happy Ending" from Copland's Red Pony score.

  • @RickenbackerBeatles Damn, man you are so lucky, the baritone part in this that piece will be wicked. Where is Johnstown? I want to know in case i get to go see your show. I march euph in the Dripping Springs band, Texas.

  • @cbug565 Please send it to me.  I would love to be able to see it.

  • heh.... The song and video combination gave me nostalgia for a time I never lived in.

  • People are always what this world is about. The film herein and the music by Copland come close to a new national anthem. I cannot get over the beauty of this piece, or the Americana contained in every note. Copland was a gay man and a jew and I am sure he met up with his share of bullies, yet his music contains hope and love and a thankfulness for the country he lives in....incredible.

  • When US and Canada were the promise lands of hope and prosperity.

    Its a shame that they are now just a landing pads for people who dont want any ties and want to live in their villages and reap all the rewards that the past accomplished.

  • so beautiful! 

  • Damn all the politics and name-calling! Can't we just gather for a few minutes in cyberspace and respect each other? Is this what people travelled thousands of miles over rough seas and fought in wars for...so we can sit on a computer and out-brag and insult one another!

    Thank God for America and Aaron Copland. Period. And if you don't like what I say, flame away. I won't bother to answer!

  • @bbdupon Copland didn't believe in god. He was also gay. He was and is still one of the greats. But don't thank your god.

  • @rmpryor Don't be such a prick, just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean others can't.

  • @DaGuitarSaxMan Tell you what. As soon as the hypocritical religious sycophants STOP co-opting and STOP trying to shove their myths about invisible deities down my throat, I will stop being a "prick". Funny. When someone tries to co-opt and attribute something to their invisible murderer in the sky, totally ignoring EVERYTHING this composer ACTUALLY stood for, you call me the prick. Stop being a hypocrite and I shall stop being a "prick"

  • @rmpryor I don't see where religion was being shoved down your throat here, but if you want to play this game. "invisible murderer in the sky", Carbon Monoxide is a deadly gas(murderer) that you can't see (invisible) and is in the air (the sky). Now does someone like God seem far fetched? I am not shoving it down on you, but if you are going to be a blatant jerk about it all then I will fight with logic. Want a list of things that you can't see but believe in? Gravity, Air, etc...

  • @rmpryor Pardon me for not buying your view of the universe. Lighten up!

  • @bbdupon This an d adagio for strings are so beautiful. they just have a way of tugging, no, yanking at your heart strings.

  • @bbdupon People don't fight in wars so we can have access to the internet...

  • thank you for your service...it ends here , you with your beliefs , us with ours.

    Bush was right , the new guy hates America.

  • I'm a conservative Old BS and the parent of a combat veteran warrior with 53 Ranger missions under his belt.  In summary STFU.

  • @bruiserND Well, I AM A COMBAT Veteran AND I don't believe for a minute that your son or I went down range just for oil. Plus, the constitution says, "With Permission from congress." Well, Bush had permission from congress and that is what every concervative I meet with twice a month says. so you STFU. I also work with sodiers on getting back into normal life when they return.

  • four unconstitutional wars fought simultaneously over oil ....end the Empire now one of 18 returning U.S. veterans, on average, commits suicide each day.

  • @bruiserND Can't you just enjoy a nice bit of music without puking your liberal garbage. You need to get professional help.

  • Just perfect. Just absolutely perfect. This could be the best piece of American music ever made. And the video is appropriate. Be sure to catch TPOL on the RCA collection with The Party Scene preceding it. Both come from the opera The Tender Land.

  • Wait!! do you guys think the hanging cars are swinging too much to the wind??

    0:12

  • Time sweetens memories. The one gift of old age.

    The greatest gift is to appreciate the present.

  • Time sweetens memories. The one gift of old age.

  • Why does this make me want to cry..

  • @tillster1423 Agree I well up every time.

  • Aaron Copland just sounds like America. Perfect.

  • I saw the Paul Hill Chorale perform The Promise of Living at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 1978. I was prepared for it but I saw many adults (men especially) who were reduced to tears by the time it ended. The choral version will always be more stirring than the purely orchestral rendition.

  • I am a HUGE CrownFAN.

  • When Ever I Watch This Video And Listen To This Music, It Reduces Me To Tears, In Only The Very Best Possible Way !!!

  • I thought I was familiar with all of Copland's music, but this beautiful collage introduced me to something new. By the way, THIS IS NOT A "SONG!". THERE WAS NO SINGING.

  • Life look so simple <3

  • @TheSweetAndSourTeam You said it brother! So true!

  • I wish those two nihilists who disliked this video would just commit suicide already...

  • lovely melody

  • Those 2 dislikes break my heart.

  • whenever I have hours and hours of papers to write, THIS SONG reminds me how great life is and how it's totally worth every hour of work for those genuinely blissful moments. Perfectly illustrated with the old footage. Thank you!

  • When I need a good cry, I come back to listen and watch. Thanks for posting.

  • It's amazing how the past is preserved through these videos and beautiful music.

  • 5:06 = Jizz.

  • Congratulations, a lovely and effective montage to this score. The hymn "Walls of Zion" as an underpinning in the bass is very moving.

    {To wallow in the hardship of one particular minority of those eras is egocentric and self-indulgent. Copland, son of Latvian Jewish emigrees, grew up in Brooklyn and was homosexual. Ergo, Let's have no more talk smack about black people, other minorities or lower classes back when... 99% of all people had it 'bad' if measured to current standards.}

  • Have to come back to this video every now and then - the music and images tell a story far too profound for me to grasp - if I didn't see the title to Copland's song it is as though I would have been able to guess it

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  • two people dont have souls

  • The greatest American Composer, ever. 

  • This is literally what music should and is all about.

  • Very engaging mix of sound and vision. A sense of remembrance.

  • This is simply immaculate. 

  • Copland is comfort. I find a home in his music.

  • questa musica è di una incomparabile bellezza, intrisa di una dolce memoria nostalgica, un insieme di luce verso un orizzonte ormai lontano e fuggito...

    carlo lamberti 2011

  • Wonderful, nostalgic pictures--- except if you were black or a person of color back then. A very different life for them.. They weren't allowed to sit in the good seats of those old trains; were banned from getting in many of those old carnivals and other places.

    Let';s remember the good times, but don't forget they were always so good for all Americans.

  • @divawriter

    It wasn't so different, there were still the joys of childhood and family. That's something discrimination can never take away from you.

  • @divawriter you just can't enjoy the music and visuals, can you? 2 presidents have made formal apologies, laws were abolished, overturned or re-written...there's an entire month devoted to the movement and that's still not enough? Sorry....this is one of my favorite pieces of music and I thought the collage of visuals was very cool....and then I saw that someone simply HAD to inject a bit of cynisism...

  • I absolutely love this. Thank you so much!!!!

  • This is without a doubt my favorite YouTube video of all time.

  • Music like this is what America is about...I hear American song and singing here...I hear Stephen Foster and Charles Ives and Henry Thoreau and I feel the movement of time immemorial from Slavery Days to the camaraderie of World War 2 and the aftermath of 911. I hear the man and the woman and and think of the books of Thornton Wilder and Jack Kerouac. Copland understood something that is essential and basic about the American and he put it into notes.

    This is the best of music.

  • @fmazzar I couldn't agree more! 

  • I might have gone my whole life and missed this - thanks!

  • Beautiful. Thank you.

  • This is the best YouTube Video I have ever seen, A Classic !!!

  • @rrichmond72 well done!

  • Ahhhh, a much simpler time =]

  • This video is wonderful.

  • such a beautiful song. i cry everytime i hear this piece. i played this 3 years ago as the ballad with my high school marching band. Carolina Crown couldn't have done a better job with it in 09 in my opinion.

  • @Jergy10 Holy crap you cry at this thing too!!! Hell I'm rendered a total mess!

  • Which recording is this?

  • Chills City at 4:59-5:13. incredible

  • Drum corps International is proud to present, CAROLINA CROOOOWNNNN!

  • Music is a promise of living

  • Saw this with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall in Dallas. What a performance, you should have heard the audience roar when it finished. Probably not a dry eye in the great symphony hall. If this music does not wake us up, nothing ever will.

  • Great images of a more innocent, less corrupt American time.  This music always makes me cry--the lost part of me??

  • Absolutely, movingly beautiful. I often took Promise of Living on choral tours of Europe.

    This is the best of us. Many, many thanks.

    The promise of living

    The promise of growing

    The promise of ending

    Is labor and sharing and loving.

  • This is so inspiring and edifying for me.

  • the Fabulous Philadelphians!....Fuggin Copland rocks...

  • Thank you.

  • I'm coming in late but I see references to the '84 Santa Clara Vanguard show. We saw it at Spartan Stadium, right at the 50, half-way up the stands. Just utterly fantastic and highly emotional.

  • I heard the melody of Zion's Walls within the first two minutes.

  • Can I somewhere download the sheet music of this piece. Can someone please help me? thank you

  • this song is just soooo emotionally overpowering... especially at 5:00...

  • Stunningly beautiful. I haven't been touched this deeply in a long time. The combination of the film footage and music struck me in ways I thought I had lost a while ago.

  • The most Beautiful video in Youtube!!!

  • The Grass Is Always Greener

  • damn straight ted

  • @Tedtastic7 hahaha. I knew someone would :)

  • @Tedtastic7 Maybe not Greener, but certainly simpler and less stress filled.

    What a glorious piece of music and the pics are so appropriate.

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  • @Tedtastic7 That is so lame!!!!! Ughhhhh, more like "The American West" Cadets 1996. All the classical buffs are like "What the hell are they talking about"

  • I'm just impressed by how universally well received this video is, not one person is able to dislike this video. I have never seen one with over 60,000 views and not a single dislike. That alone conveys what we, as Americans, truly wish for in our hearts. Losing all of our material, but keeping the ones we love close, and the promise of living closest of all. With Thanksgiving.

  • Heard this with the great Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Dallas, at symphony hall.

    The orchestra really roared at the end of this great Copland work. Hearing all those instruments working together to the great climax of this piece was heart touching.

    The audience roared at the end, as the symphony all stood. 

  • I love that footage of the little boy holding his baby brother you can tell he's proud of him.

  • It's simply Copland. Look, learn, and love his mood. Feel America, for all the promises our grandparents wanted to give us. Don't let them down, all they gave.

  • I think I heard a bit of "Zion's Walls" in there.

  • Beutiful

  • alan silvestry must be influennced by copland

  • I find it so bittersweet that for so many, this is so "American", representing of values "long gone by", yet does anyone here realize Copeland himself was gay? I am not suggesting by any means this fact undermines his work-but rather enriches it.

  • @Sarahmadre09

    To bad you had to bring that up,,, now all Christians will think that he was defective, despite all of the great music he has given us !!

  • @rrichmond72

    I won't, for what its worth. Christian or not, one isjudged by what they do in this world. Plus the bible says we shouldn't be judging in the first place. Thank you for the music Copland!

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  • This is such a beautiful piece, very touching. Thanks for sharing. We all need to reflect and live simple and appreciate what we all have in these times of great stress. The dogs at the end really touch our hearts, as I look at my beautiful Golden and give him a big hug. Thanks again.